I'm serious. They are vocal, passionate and involved. They don't grant free passes to any person or any proposal. They ensure that there are no unexamined policies at City Hall. At their best, they serve as the conscience of the city.

Until they don't know when to stop.

The latest example is Laura's Law. The ultra-progressives have been fighting this idea - which gets the severely and tragically mentally ill into treatment - for years. They say it's a draconian policy that would round up the afflicted, tie them down and force them to take medication against their will.

It isn't.

Some of the top people in the mental health field have patiently explained this many times. The program sends the severely afflicted to court, to appear before a judge to set up a program, but treatment is voluntary.

"Assisted outpatient treatment (a clinical term for Laura's Law) does not compel medication," he said. "Individuals cannot be required to take medication. There's no mechanism for enforcement in the law."

He might as well be shouting into the wind. It's now clear that Laura's Law will almost certainly be implemented in San Francisco. Supervisor David Campos, an opponent, conceded last week that Supervisor Mark Farrell's intention to send Laura's Law to a city election - it's polling with landslide support - will force the issue. Under that threat, supervisors, even those opposed, will vote to implement the law so that they can try to exercise some control over the policy, eliminating the need to go to the ballot.

"I do believe that Laura's Law is going to be reality," Campos said at Monday's Rules Committee hearing. "It is going to pass in San Francisco."

And that should be that. But the activists just hit "reset" and restarted the whole medical-police-state argument. Even while appearing to give in, Campos went right back to the old talking points.

"I have been consistently concerned about the mandatory treatment that is embedded in the legislation," he said. "I don't think involuntary treatment is the answer."

"Honestly, if the things Jennifer Friedenbach says were true, I would be against it," says Wilson. "They are acting as if the police are just dying to run after people and inject them with drugs. I understand those fears, but you can't demonize a program based on fear."

This isn't the first time the activists have let their ideological fervor carry them away. At the hearing to decide whether to reinstate Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi after domestic abuse accusations, zealots who supported the sheriff booed and hissed at representatives from groups standing up for victims of domestic violence. It was ugly and indefensible.

The Laura's Law hearing had some of the same. For starters, many of those objecting represented programs that treat the mentally ill. Laura's Law could be seen as a threat to their funding. Then there was the woman who claimed she could speak for the mentally ill.

"We are the loved ones, and we are saying no," she said. "I think you have to listen directly to the people who are affected."

Here's a news flash - you're not the loved ones. They are the mothers and fathers of these severely distressed individuals, and they are begging for Laura's Law to be implemented.

For all the angry rhetoric and talk of civil liberties, there's a simpler way to look at this. Kelly Kruger, the psychiatric liaison for the San Francisco Police Department, talked at Monday's hearing about a woman she's been trying to treat.

"She had a baby on the sidewalk a few months ago," Kruger said. "She can't say who the father is. When we saw her she had wrapped speaker wire from her waist to her feet so no one could sexually assault her. She then tied herself to a pole. Unfortunately, because she couldn't move, she had gone to the bathroom on herself.

"I have to say, it ripped my heart out. I don't see how we are doing a service to someone like that" by not treating them.

Nor is it a service to use the plight of someone so helpless and sad to score ideological points.

Supervisors: Pass Laura's Law. Stop the endless circular arguments. It is time to move on.